


Pumpkin

by LananiA3O



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Family Bonding, Gen, Halloween, Happy Ending, PTSD, Reunion, mild swearing, return from the dead, very brief non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: For once, Bruce has been in exactly the right place at the right time - namely, he has been there to help Jason escape from his own grave. Now he needs to convince the rest of the family that the boy he's bringing home is not some demon hellspawn copycat.





	Pumpkin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Grave Answered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155388) by [LananiA3O](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O). 



> Unplanned sequel to "The Grave Answered". Seriously. This started with nothing but the last line of Jason in this one-shot and now it's suddenly 5k long. What the fuck.
> 
> Happy Halloween, guys!
> 
> For status updates, writing trivia, fandom/fanfiction/writing related questions and occasional random ramblings, please visit my tumblr: http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/

Master Bruce had gone insane.

There was no other explanation Alfred could come up with. After six months of grieving for his child, of trying to weather the media storm that had followed said child’s death, of resisting the torturously strong urge to kill his murderer, Master Bruce had finally snapped. Gone mad. Insane. Crazy. Bonkers. Looney. Why else would he dig up the corpse of his own son, wrap him up in his coat and thus risk getting a very, very bad case of pneumonia himself, and carry him down the graveyard’s hill?

“We’re almost there, Jason,” Master Bruce muttered as they passed the heavy iron gate and approached the car, and the sound nearly broke Alfred’s heart. “Just a few more steps.”

“Master Bruce…” Alfred forced the grief and worry out of his voice, pushed it down together with the rest, as he always did. Master Bruce needed him now. He needed the rational Alfred. “Master Bruce, what exactly do you think you are doing?”

“He’s alive, Alfred!” The joy was written as plainly on Master Bruce’s face, in the glimmer of his eyes and the smile on his lips, as it swung in his voice. “I don’t know how, but it’s Jason and he is alive! Look for yourself.”

Alfred sighed through thinly pressed lips, quietly enough to be sure that the storm had swallowed it, then stepped forward slowly. If this was what it took to bring Master Bruce back down to Earth, he’d do it. He’d verify the boy’s death. Again.

Underneath a myriad of cuts and the heavy smudges of mud, the boy’s cheeks were pale as they had been when the coffin had been closed for good. His lips were a deep purple, almost blue, same as the lids of his closed eyes. A ghostly pale worm was crawling out of his wet hair. Alfred picked it up and flicked it aside, then pushed both of his fingers against the sallow throat and set himself up for a one minute count.

He got all the way to two seconds before the first beat of a faint pulse pressed against his fingers and it made him flinch, withdrawing his hand instantly as if it had touched glowing iron. He shot Master Bruce a questioning look, but only got a mild sigh in return.

“You’re not going crazy, Alfred. He’s got a pulse. Feel it.”

He did. Alfred froze as his fingers pressed against the boy’s throat once more. It was a slow pulse, and slightly irregular, but it was there. Alfred practically felt his jaw drop.

“But how on Earth?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted with a light shrug, “but he’s alive and he needs to get out of his rain, if we want to keep him this way. He needs medical attention.”

“We cannot just take the boy to a hospital, Master Bruce. He is legally dead.”

“I know.”

Alfred nodded. It was clear where Master Bruce was headed, and as much as Alfred would have preferred to have someone with higher skills and better equipment look after young Master Jason, their options had come down to one. He moved quickly, opening the door of the Aston Martin wide to let his two masters slip in, then returning to the driver’s seat himself.

He drove slowly, much more so than usual, mostly because he could not tell how much damage the poor boy’s body was still suffering. He was grateful that the windows were tinted black, at least, reducing the risk of unwanted eyes catching sight of their unusual passenger, even though the roads were practically empty. Halfway to the manor, Master Jason stirred and groaned in obvious discomfort and the sound was both heart-wrenching and exhilarating. Yes, the poor boy was in pain. No, he was not dead. Nothing could dampen the joy at that fact.

“And you are one-hundred percent sure that it is really him,” Alfred finally dared to ask as they made their way down to the medical bay in the Batcave.

“Absolutely,” Master Bruce answered. He was taking the steps slowly, one at a time, careful to keep his step soft and his pace slow. As if the boy in his arms were made of glass and would shatter at the slightest impact. “I was there, Alfred. I was there when he… when he dug himself out of his own grave.”

Alfred felt the color drain from his face. That was a detail he had not yet known about, and part of him wished he never would have. It only heightened his haste as he prepared one of the beds in the infirmary and readied the machines.

The blood test erased whatever doubts might have lingered in his mind, as they started their work. It was Master Jason. Alfred took a deep breath as he started stripping the boy out of his wet and dirty suit jacket and shirt. His body temperature had dropped to a worrying thirty degrees Celsius and Alfred made sure to warm the water up to a healthy thirty-six before putting in the soft cloth and running it gently across the boy’s skin. The bruises were still there, together with fresh new cuts and splinters, and god only knew how many of his bones were still broken.

Alfred worked methodically, from the child’s head down his shoulders and arms and over his torso, while Master Bruce took off the ruined cashmere pants and leather dress shoes and started taking and analyzing a blood sample. The carbon-dioxide content of his blood was slightly elevated, but other than that, Master Jason’s sample seemed perfectly normal. Alfred took comfort in that. By the time he was done washing the young master clean enough to see if there were any external injuries that needed immediate attention, he had enough soil in the excess bucket to start potting a new plant. Getting him into a pair of warm pyjamas was even more of a hassle than getting him out of his funeral clothes, and the boy whimpered softly as one of Master Bruce’s hands pushed just a little too firmly against his right shoulder.

“It’s alright, Master Jason,” Alfred ran a hand through his coal-black hair quickly, then draped a thermal blanket over him. “We are nearly done. Nearly done.”

The MRI scan was next, and Alfred was once again grateful to be working for a man whose company regularly excelled standards in every field. WayneTech’s MRI scanners worked four times faster than normal ones and soon enough the picture was complete on the fifty-inch screen in front of them. Master Bruce’s brow knitted into a scowl.

“Some of his fractures are still there.”

Alfred nodded as Master Bruce traced the lines on the screen. It didn’t look nearly as bad as it had when the coroner had examined him, six months ago, but not all the damage was gone. Four of his ribs were still broken and there were hairline fractures in his tibiae, ulnae, radii, and his right clavicle. Six months ago, they had been full-scale cracks.

“It is a good thing you found him when you did, Master Bruce. I shudder to think what would have happened had he actually tried to move from the spot of his own accord with these injuries.”

“Me too,” Master Bruce nodded solemnly. “Let’s put his arms and legs in splints and move him upstairs. I doubt he’ll enjoy waking up in the dark after...”

“I agree.” There was no need to finish that sentence. Alfred nodded and headed for the cabinet with the splints and casts. “He should not be left unsupervised either.”

“You are afraid he might try to get up and walk if we do?”

“Indeed, sir.”

Alfred went for the left leg first. According to the heartbeat monitor, Master Jason was still asleep, and with any luck, he would remain that way. Master Bruce started mirroring his actions on the right side, and Alfred bit his lip to bite back any further comments.

It would not do anyone any good to remind Master Bruce of the severe psychological trauma to be expected.

***

There were some events that just etched themselves into a person’s memory, like acid on a metal plate. Things that happened and that, if you asked that person fifty years later where they had been at the time, said person would still be able to recall them with perfect clarity.

Barbara Gordon would never forget that it had been half past six on the Tuesday morning of October 28th and that she had been not-so-blissfully asleep, dreaming of a bullet to the spine and spidery, white hands tugging at her clothes, when she had gotten a call from Bruce.

Not Batman. Bruce.

“If you’re lying half-dead in a ditch, you’re better off calling Alfred,” Barbara muttered under a wide yawn, as she pressed the phone to her ear. “If you need a clue, you’ve got the wrong number.”

“I am not half-dead in a ditch,” Bruce lobbed back, dry as sand. “And I do not need Oracle. I need you, Barbara. At the manor. Now.”

“Now?” Barbara raised an eyebrow. It was six goddamn thirty in the morning. The sun would be up in half an hour. “Gimme an hour. Just going to get up and shower—“

“It’s about Jason.”

Barbara nearly missed her chair as she grabbed for it. The phone slipped for all of an inch before she remembered to curl her fingers tightly. Something akin to annoyance started to bubble in her stomach, but it was laced with sympathy.

“Bruce. It’s been six months. I know you still miss him. We all do.” She ran a hand through her tousled hair, then tried for the chair again. This time, she managed to get in without any trouble. “But, really, what is there left to talk about that we haven’t talked about yet? Let it go. Don’t do this to yours—“

“I need you at the manor,” Bruce’s voice was unforgiving steel. “Ring Alfred when you get here. He will let you in.”

He hung up on her without another word and so Barbara cursed at her phone before heading for the bathroom. Barbara liked Bruce Wayne. She really did. As a matter of fact, she was probably one of only a dozen people who liked the _real_ Bruce Wayne, the one that was not a front for the media. She liked him. But sometimes, he was a colossal ass. Sometimes, she just wanted to take that thick, stubborn skull of his and bash it against the nearest piece of rock to see which would crack first.

By the time she was done showering and getting dressed, her cab had arrived. She tried to come up with plausible scenarios for why Bruce would have her come to the manor, rather than showing up unannounced on her window sill like he usually did, but it was a fruitless endeavor. Barb didn’t like it. Surprises could be nice, but not when they came from Bruce. She rang Alfred two minutes before they reached the gates to the grounds of the manor, paid the cab driver quickly, and got out of the car as soon as she could. The sooner she could get this over with, the better.

“Good morning, Alfred. Where is he?” She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Judging from the rather displeased look on Alfred’s face, he was not surprised.

“Master Bruce is upstairs, Miss Gordon, please follow me.”

Follow she did, and every yard gained made the tiny little ball of discomfort in her gut grow as they proceeded through the wide halls of the manor, up to the second floor and down the hallway to the bedrooms. They passed by Bruce’s, which was strange enough, and Dick’s old room as well, only to stop in front of a door that hadn’t been opened in six months. By now, the little ball was a block of ice.

“Alfred, what is going on here? Is this a joke?”

“No, Miss Gordon,” the door opened wide and Alfred stepped aside, “I can assure you it’s not.”

Bruce was seated in an arm chair on the far side of the bed, between the mattress and the window. Despite the lateness of the year, warm sunlight was falling in through the glass, dousing the entire room in a soft, auburn glow. In the bed, hooked up to a heart and pulse monitor, an IV and a catheter, both arms in braces and a thermal blanket swaddling him, lay a boy she hadn’t seen in six months. A boy who should not have a pulse or a heart beat. A boy who was dead.

“What is this?”

“It’s alright, Barbara.” Bruce somehow managed to look both old and young, tired and energetic as he turned his attention away from the small hand he was clasping in both of his and looked at her from across the room. “You are not hallucinating. It’s really him. Come and see.”

 _Not without my escrima sticks I won’t_ , Barbara thought as she shook her head. She should have packed those. She usually did, but she had thought the manor of all places would be safe. What had she been thinking?

“Barbara?”

“Bruce...” At last, her tongue managed to force out some actual words. She had been trying to find a nice way to say this, but there was no sugar-coating now. Barbara swallowed hard. “Bruce, I don’t know what that... _thing_... in that bed is, but Jason is dead. He is DEAD!” The thought stung. Even now, even half a year later, it still hurt like a stab to the heart each time it came to her. “I don’t know if that’s a clone, or a shapeshifter, or a cyborg, or some alien monstrosity, but Jason is dead. Step away from that bed. Now!”

“Miss Gordon...” Alfred closed the door behind her softly and panic started to swell in her. She was trapped now. _Great. Just perfect_. “I can assure you, that is Master Jason. Master Bruce was there when the poor boy dug himself out of his coffin. We ran blood scans, DNA tests, dental records, and fingerprints. It is him.”

As if he knew that they were talking about him, the boy stirred in his bed. For a moment, it was the quiet, soft stirring of a normal sleeper. Then, all hell broke loose.

He tried to kick and flail, but his legs were restrained and Bruce held him steady, whispering re-assurances that Barbara had not known Bruce had in him. Perhaps Jason was not the one who was not himself in that room.

“Bruce...” The boy’s voice was small, but it was Jason. There was no doubt about that. His hand clung to Bruce’s like a limpet. “Are you dead?”

“No, son. And neither are you. You’re alive. You’re in the manor. It will be alright.”

There was something methodical to the words, well-practiced, well-rehearsed, as if he had spoken them a thousand times. Only when she was close enough to touch the bed did Barbara finally see the blood-shot red of Bruce’s eyes that indicated either severe sleep-deprivation or plentiful crying. Possibly both.

“And we’ve got a visitor, too. Look!”

He nodded in her direction, and Jason’s head turned slowly. His eyes widened, two giant specks of greenish blue, and his lips stretched into a wide smile.

“Babs!”

“Hey Jason...” It felt ridiculous. Just saying it felt absolutely ridiculous. She was greeting a dead boy, who wasn’t actually dead. She had been there. His wake. His funeral. Now he was here. Monitors beeping. Eyes blinking. Lips smiling. One hand reaching out for her slowly, clumsily, hindered in its movement by a sturdy brace. Broken, but alive. “Yeah, it’s me.”

 _And this is really you..._ She could feel the warmth of his fingers in hers, the pressure as he squeezed gently, the pulse throbbing underneath the skin. This was really real. Jason was really real.

“How?”

“We don’t know,” Bruce admitted. “But after the last six months, I don’t really care to question receiving a good miracle for a change.” He grimaced as he looked at the clock mounted on the other side of the room. “I have business I can’t reschedule at nine and evidence to examine that can’t wait. And I need to figure out what to say to the press if they come asking what happened to the grave. Can you look after Jason for a while?”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Jason huffed indignantly, before shooting Barbara a shy look. “No offense, Babs.”

Barbara couldn’t help it. The laugh bubbled up inside her lungs and squeezed through her throat despite her best intentions. This was _definitely_ Jason, alright.

“Then how about a tutor? You missed six months of school, young man.”

Jason paled, if that was even possible. He was already white as a sheet. Now, snow would have looked at him and gone “damn, that’s white”. Alfred cleared his throat softly.

“I am not quite confident if studying would be a good idea, Miss Gordon. Master Jason is still recovering from his injuries. He needs rest.”

“I’m not going to ask him to write an essay, Alfred,” Barb replied, and before she could even think about outlining her practically non-existent plan, Jason scoffed.

“Yeah, and I’ve been resting for six months. I think I’ve had more than enough.”

Bruce’s jaw sank, almost in slow motion, and it only made Barbara laugh even harder. Jason tried to laugh, too, but it soon devolved into a nasty cough, and so Barbara reigned herself in once more. Perhaps she and Alfred both had a point. Chances were good Jason would tire soon enough.

“I promise we’ll stick to very light material, okay?”

Bruce seemed to mull it over for a moment, then nodded. He gave Jason a quick kiss on the forehead and squeezed Barbara’s shoulder gently, before shambling off to what Barbara presumed to be a shower and a new suit. Right now, it was hard to tell which one of the dark-haired people in the room was the actual zombie.

“Have you had breakfast yet, Miss Gordon?”

Barbara shook her head. Now that she realized she had skipped it, her stomach grumbled loudly.

“I’m hungry, too.” Jason added with a frustrated look at the IV. “Can we just remove the damn tubes, please?”

Alfred’s lips curved just a fraction of an inch. “That shall depend on whether you can keep down breakfast, Master Jason. And on your language.”

The breakfast turned out to be two buns of bread with a delicious pumpkin spread and applesauce, which Jason dug into as if his life depended on it. He managed to keep it down, too, and when Alfred returned an hour later, he finally removed the IV. By that point Jason had long since been lost in his chemistry text book and Barbara did not have the heart to tell him that he would most likely have to repeat at least two semesters anyway. Another hour later he had dozed off, and she took the book from his hand gently before opening up a remote connection to her computers from her phone and starting a search.

There had to be an explanation for what had happened here. Dead people did not just crawl out of their graves all of a sudden, especially since it had only been one dead person, rather than the entire graveyard. She checked for reports from the various super hero organizations she was connected to first, then widened her search for other strange events occurring around the same time, but it was as if she was searching for a needle in the haystack. By noon, Barbara put her phone away and started preparing Jason’s next lesson instead.

This was going to be a weird day.

***

He arrived at the manor in the dead of the night on All Hallow’s Eve and the place was silent as a crypt. Dick shook his head as he got off his motorcycle and walked up the steps to the front door.

There were no pumpkins outside this year. No fake spider webbing across the entire front of the house. No fake bats and rats and ghouls and ghosts. No fake severed limbs hanging from the trees. No gravestones along the path leading up to the stairs. No trick-or-treaters. The manor had never looked so bleak and Dick had a distinct feeling that this was just how Bruce wanted it. He didn’t blame him.

Jason had _loved_ Halloween. Loved it with all his little heart, even though Halloween in Gotham usually meant at least one psycho going all out and trying to murder hundreds of people. Even though it usually came with cold, harsh winds, pelting rain, and thunder. Nothing could ever have spoiled Jason’s Halloween mood. He would insist on carving his own pumpkin and sewing his own costume every year. He would insist on going trick or treating before patrol. He would insist on helping Alfred put up the decorations and make pumpkin pie and hand out candy.

Jason had known how to celebrate a damn good Halloween and Dick was sure the last thing Bruce wanted this year was to be reminded of that. He took a deep breath, counted to ten, and knocked.

Alfred greeted him with a slight smile on his face, and that alone was worrying enough. Not enough to forget his manners though, and Dick gave him a quick hug before slipping in, shrugging out of his long coat, and taking off his shoes. God help him if he dragged mud all over the shiny, polished floor of the manors main hall.

“I’m sorry I got here so late,” Dick finally explained as Alfred led him to the den. “I got Bruce’s message, but I was off-world. How bad is it?”

“How bad?” Alfred stopped, turned, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Bad? Nothing is bad, Master Dick. Quite to the contrary, actually.”

Now that made even less sense. Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. How was he going to say this?

“Alfred, not for nothing, but Bruce doesn’t usually contact me through the Titans’ channels unless it’s urgent and yet we’re meeting up here and not in the cave? I know he’s still mourning. We all are. And yet you’re saying things are good? I can’t see a single pumpkin outside, but the entire house smells of spice?” He hadn’t noticed that before, but the closer he got to the den, the more prominent the scent had become. “What is going on here, Alfred?”

“Master Bruce did not tell you why he wanted you to come to the manor, did he?” Dick shook his head and watched Alfred’s brow furrow more and more with every second. “I wonder why I am surprised at all.” Suddenly, the smile was gone from Alfred’s face, replaced with absolute sincerity and seriousness. His hands moved to Dick’s shoulders and squeezed firmly. “Master Dick, I apologize for Master Bruce’s failure in communicating the purpose of this visit, so I will do it for him: Master Jason is alive.”

“Yeah...” Dick gave a nervous laugh. God help him, indeed. _Alfred_ had lost it. “Right. Of course he—“

“I know it sounds insane,” Alfred continued without missing a beat, without dropping his hands. His gaze was like super glue and Dick swallowed hard. “I did not believe it myself, but by some strange, higher power, Master Jason dug his way out of his own grave and we can only thank the Lord that Master Bruce was there at the same time to take care of him. We have run every test we could think of. Miss Gordon has analyzed all six months of video footage from the security camera at the gravesite. The grave was not tempered with. Master Jason is alive and he is in that room and I need you to not panic when you see him. The boy’s mental state is fragile enough as it is.”

 _It’s not his mental state I’m worried about_ , Dick wanted to lob back, but the words were stuck in his throat. Jason? Alive? Here in the manor? What the—It made no sense. He tried to think, tried to search his brain for every distant memory of magic, science, or divine intervention he had witnessed – and he had witnessed enough strange things to fill a hundred lifetimes – but he could honestly claim that he had never seen anyone cheat the reaper after an autopsy and a funeral.

“Will you promise me to remain calm, Master Dick?” Alfred asked, now gentle and soft again as his voice normally was. Dick nodded.

“Yeah. Sure.” _I’ll remain calm. I’ll remain calm enough to knock all of you out if this goes to hell,_ Dick thought and his fingers curled around the batarang in his pocket. With one last, deep breath, Dick followed Alfred into the room.

If the outside of the house was bleak and dull, the den was flashy and over-decorated. It was as if every Halloween decoration in the house had found its way here – pumpkins, spiderwebs, bats, rats, ghouls, ghosts, fake limbs and all. The only thing missing were the tombstones. And Bruce. Bruce was nowhere to be seen and that did nothing to turn off the alarm bells in Dick’s head. Barbara was sitting by fireplace, stoking the logs and watching the flames dance. She turned her head as he entered, gave him a quick smile and a shout and then promptly returned to her task. He approached her slowly, hoping to get a moment alone with her to clear up this madness, only to freeze as he passed the couch.

On the sofa, bundled up in a mess of black and orange blankets, a pale boy was sleeping peacefully. Beneath his splint-covered arms, Dick could see his stomach rise and fall with each breath. His black hair was unruly once more, his lips drawn into that familiar pout. He winced and murmured something under his breath as a sudden shudder ran through him and made him turn sideways. Dick drew a breath and forgot to exhale.

Jason. That was Jason. He knew that face. Every inch of it. It had haunted him in his sleep for the last six months, asking him why he hadn’t done more to help him, to make him better, to make him good enough not to die. It was immortalized in a frame that stood next to his bed, a green frame because green was Jason’s favorite color.

He still hadn’t exhaled. Dick’s feet nudged forward slowly. His right hand remained curled around the batarang as he knelt down, but his left went to the boy’s wrist. There, just underneath the thin skin, was the throbbing pulse of life, of hope. Dick couldn’t breathe.

Then, hell broke loose before him.

The thrashing came as sudden as the shrieking, high-pitched and terrified, full of horror and panic. Dick reacted on instinct. Dead or not. Jason or not. This child needed help. He restrained his arms quickly before he could hurt himself – those splints were probably there for a good reason – and brought his other hand, now free of the batarang, to the pale forehead and into that black mess of hair.

“Hush, Jason! Hush! It’s alright. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

Below the thick brows, two eyes opened slowly. There were tears in them, over-flowing from the corners, but that teal blue was unmistakable. At last, Dick let go of the breath he had been holding.

“Dick?” Jason’s voice was tiny, smaller than he had ever been and thinner, too, but there was a spark underneath it that screamed hope and joy. “Dick, is that really you?”

“Yeah...” _And this is really you_. The realization hit him in the gut like a baseball bat. Or a crowbar. This was really Jason. He could feel it in his heart. “Yeah, it’s me, Little Wing. Couldn’t miss Halloween at the manor with my favorite little brother.”

“I’m your only brother,” Jason scowled and Dick grinned. He had forgotten how adorable Jason could be when he was faux angry. “We’re in the manor, right? Not in Ethiopia?”

“No, dear God, no.” _Screw carefulness_. Dick wrapped his arms around the boy as best as he could and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “We’re not in Ethiopia. You are never going back there. Never ever. I swear it.”

 _And you’re never going back to Grace Hill either_ , Dick wanted to add. Whatever higher power had brought his brother back, it had better not come collecting. He was never giving him back. Never.

“And it’s Halloween now?”

“Yes, son.”

There he was. Bruce entered the room slowly, although the worry was written all over his face and Dick was sure he had come running. There was a certain familiarity and fatigue in the way he slumped down on the arm chair next to the couch that spoke of this not being the first existential nightmare Jason had had. Alfred arrived and handed Jason a black-and-orange plastic cup of pumpkin juice with little bats stamped on it with practiced ease. Jason sipped more carefully and slowly than Dick had ever seen. This was practice.

“Thank you for coming, Dick.” Bruce glanced at him for all of a second before turning his eyes back on Jason, as if he kind of believed that Jason would vanish the moment he looked away. Dick couldn’t blame him. “I know you were off world and busy— I’m glad you got here in time.”

“In time for what?”

“Halloween, you little pumpkin,” Barbara grinned as she patted Jason on the shoulder and handed his now empty cup back to Alfred. “You did say you wanted all of us to be here, right?”

“Yeah...” That made him smile for all of two seconds. Then, the gears in his head seemed to click and suddenly Jason was pouting again. It made him look twelve instead of fifteen and Dick had to grin even before the words had left Jason’s mouth. “If it’s Halloween at the manor, why are none of you wearing costumes? Barb, you have that amazing witch get-up of yours. And Dick, you make an insanely good werewolf—”

“I just got back from a different galaxy,” Dick said quickly and threw his hands up in defense. “I didn’t really have the time for dress up.”

“And besides, we didn’t want to go all out on the costumes,” Barbara added. “Not when you’re stuck in bed and unable to join.”

“I’m not unable to join,” Jason protested. He tried to cross his arms in front of his chest, but the splints made the gesture look adorkable at best. Dick bit his lip to hide his grin. “Just take off the splints, stuff me in a tattered suit, and dump some dirt on me. Bruce can verify I make for a very convincing zombie.”

... ... ...

Dick’s mind was blank. It was as if someone had just taken a big broom and swept whatever thoughts were in there out through his ears. He had just enough awareness to feel his jaw sink, inch by inch until he could all but feel the carpet in between his teeth. To his right, Barbara sat with one hand over her mouth, the other clasping at her chair’s arm rest like it was a lifeline in a storm. Alfred stood, frozen in time, the fresh cup of pumpkin juice extended halfway down to Jason. His face was calm as stone, but his eyes were an ocean in a storm.

To Dick’s left, Bruce’s mouth opened wide and out came the loudest and sweetest sound that Dick had ever heard.

For the first time in six months that had felt like eternity, Bruce laughed.


End file.
